1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to apparatus for scanning and storing images contained on documents.
2. Description of the Art
Many business people exchange and collect business cards with associates, customers or clients as a way of obtaining information including the address and telephone number of such individuals and their respective business or company name. Such business cards frequently include a brief description of the individual's company title, business or profession, services or products, as well as the company logo.
While some individuals are organized and carefully store business cards received from others in a folder or file, most individuals just toss the cards into a drawer or box. This makes it difficult and time consuming to find a particular individual's business card or to locate all of the cards of individuals associated with a particular company, or who offer a particular product or service.
Software is available for use on personal computers or PCs which enables customer or client names and addresses to be stored in memory, typically in alphabetical order, as well as providing the capability of retrieving and/or searching for a particular individual or company name, at least by alphabetical order. However, such software requires the manual transcription of information from business cards, letters, etc., into the computer memory via a keyboard. Further, the company logo and any information relating to an individual's company title, services or products, typically found on many business cards, cannot be transferred during such transcription. In addition, foreign language information found on some business cards is also lost during such transcription.
Another type of device which fulfills certain of he needs of a business person relating to retaining information on associates, customers or clients, etc., is an electronic organizer. These devices are similar to hand-held calculators and include a central processing unit, a memory, a small display and a full keyboard, even though the individual keys are relatively small. However, name and telephone information contained on business cards still must be manually transcribed into such devices via the small keyboard.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus which is capable of easily transferring, storing, retrieving and displaying all of the information typically found on a business card.
Optical image scanners are currently available for scanning documents and making an immediate copy thereof. Such scanners are hand-held units which typically scan a document in narrow strips of several inches in width and generate copies thereof which can be pieced together to reproduce the entire document. Full page scanners are also available. However, such devices merely copy the document and do not provide any type of data processing for image storage, retrieval, display or arrangement in lists or categories.
Image scanning systems utilizing PCs and a full-size keyboard are capable of providing such storage, retrieval and display of information on a document, such as a business card. However, such systems are large and not easily portable.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a hand-held, portable apparatus which is capable of scanning, storing and displaying images found on small documents, such as business cards. It would also be desirable to provide an apparatus which is capable of scanning, storing and displaying all of the images on business cards including company logos, etc. It would also be desirable to provide an apparatus which is capable of arranging scanned and stored images from small documents in a list and, further, which is capable of retrieving such images in a predetermined list and adding, removing, or rearranging the images in a particular list into a particular order. It would also be desirable to provide such an apparatus which enables a user to categorize and link the images of documents stored in memory or input thereto in a number of different retrievable lists.